Monday, June 16, 2014

DMT - Psychedelic Death and Rebirth

American medical doctor
and psychiatrist, Rick Strassman, has been working diligently to improve
our understanding of entheogens, specifically dimethyltryptamine or DMT.In 1990 Dr. Strassman broke a 20 year
prohibition on psychedelic experiments in America when he began his work giving
intravenous doses of the world’s strongest psychedelic to patients and
volunteers.Like Dr. Grof’s LSD subjects, Dr. Strassman’s DMT subjects found the experience to be
overwhelmingly positive with a myriad of long-term benefits.

“Volunteers reported a stronger sense of self, less fear
of death, and greater appreciation of life. Some found they were better able to
relax, and they pushed themselves a little less. Several volunteers drank less
alcohol or noted they were more sensitive to psychedelic drugs. Others believed
with greater certainty that there are different levels of reality.”-Dr. Rick Strassman, “DMT – The Spirit
Molecule” (274)

DMT is such a powerful psychedelic that it completely melts
away the veil of this reality and transports consciousness into an entirely
other dimension occupied by everything from advice-giving telepathic rainbows
to body-snatching demonic gremlins.Whether your eyes stay open or closed, these so-called “hallucinations”
completely immerse and ensconce themselves into your consciousness taking you
out of your body and often out of this world.The effects then wear off after about 10 minutes when smoked, 30 minutes
when injected, and after 3-4 hours when made into Ayahuasca tea.

Dr. Strassman’s patients
said in the long-term their DMT experiences made them more open-minded and
laid-back, caused their thoughts and feelings to be better integrated and
overlap more, lessened their fear of death, and gave them “a more real sense
of connectedness to everything and everyone.”One of his patients named Elena said, “most
of my experiences fade with time.Not so
with DMT.Outside me, not much is
different.Inside, I rest in the comfort
of knowing my soul is eternal and my consciousness endless.”Another patient, Cleo, related how during her
DMT trip, a cascading rainbow of colors telepathically communicated with her,
telling her that she had been looking for God outside, but instead to go in,
that God was in every cell of her body: “The colors kept telling me things,
but they were telling me things so I not only heard what I was seeing, but also
felt it in my cells.I say ‘felt,’ but
it was like no other ‘felt,’ more like a knowing that was happening in my
cells. That God is in everything and that we are all connected, and that God
dances in every cell of life, and that every cell of life dances in God.I am changed. I will never be the same. To
simply say this almost seems to lessen the experience. I don't think that
anyone hearing or reading this can truly grasp what I felt, can really
understand it deeply and completely.The
euphoria goes on into eternity. And I am part of that eternity.”

Due to all the miraculous, revelatory, and other-worldly
experiences shared by his DMT subjects, Dr. Strassman dubbed dimethyltryptamine
“the spirit molecule.”The parallels
between classic mystical or “spiritual” experiences and what people experienced
with the “spirit molecule” were too similar to ignore: During both DMT trips
and mystical experiences time, space, and matter all become secondary to
consciousness.The separation between
self/non-self disappears and personal identity fades into identification with
all of existence.Past, present and
future all meld together into one timeless moment of eternity.Space is no longer here or there but
everywhere as one.There is only here
now and travel happens at the speed of thought.

“In altered states of consciousness this new perception of the world
becomes dominant and compelling.It
completely overrides the everyday illusion of Newtonian reality, where we seem
to be ‘skin-encapsulated egos’ existing in a world of separate beings and
objects.In extreme forms of
transpersonal perception we can experience ourselves as the whole biosphere of
our planet or the entire material universe.”-Stanislav Grof, “The Holotropic Mind” (88)

Further to their revelatory and spiritual experiences, many of
Dr. Strassman’s patients also reported experiencing a typical NDE while under
DMT.They felt themselves lift out of
their bodies, saw and entered tunnels of light, heard celestial music and
encountered angels or light beings, felt absolute peace and painlessness and
were reluctant to come back into their bodies.For example, one of his patients, Willow, described her experience
saying, “First I saw a tunnel or channel of light off to the right … There
was a sound like music, like a score, but unfamiliar to me, supporting the
emotional tone of the events and drawing me in … There were large beings in the
tunnel, on the right side, next to me … It was so much more real than life … I felt
strongly, ‘This is dying and this is okay’ ... I had a sense of dying, letting
go and separating, after the beings in the tunnel helped me along. … It's like
a cosmic joke. If we all knew what was waiting for us, we'd all kill ourselves.
That's why we stay in this form for so long, to figure that out.Everyone should try a high dose of DMT once …
That place is so full and so complete … when I came back into my body it was so
heavy and so confining.”

“Her consciousness
separated from her body, she moved rapidly through a tunnel, or tunnels, toward
a warm, loving, all-knowing white light. Beings helped her on the way, and some
even threatened to drag her down. Beautiful music accompanied her on the early
stages of the journey. Time and space lost all meaning. She was tempted not to
return, but realized she needed to share the incredible information she
received with this world … Her comment about everyone committing suicide if
they knew how great the ‘afterlife’ is points out another similarity between
Willow's experiences and those of ‘naturally occurring’ NDEs: That is, those
who have had an NDE do not rush off to suicide. Rather, they reside in the knowledge
that there is ‘life after death,’ and that transition loses its sting. Thus,
they are able to live life more fully, because the fear of death that drives so
many to distraction is now so much less.”-Dr. Rick Strassman, “DMT – The Spirit Molecule” (226)

As mentioned earlier many entheogens have long been known to
induce the death-rebirth experience and none are stronger than DMT.Several of Dr. Strassman’s patients reported
experiencing phenomena similar to what is outlined in the The Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead, ancient texts regarding the process of death and the
various states of consciousness the soul passes through on its afterlife
journey.Elena shared that, “more
than once the DMT sessions gave me the gift of truly subjectively knowing the
phenomenon described in ‘Introductions to the Dead’ in The Tibetan Book of the
Dead.”Another of Dr. Strassman’s
patients, Eli, said, “I relaxed and the environment began to change
noticeably.I knew I was going through
the first bardo of death, that I had been here many times before and it was
okay … I had broken out of time and space … I no longer fear death.It’s like you’re there one minute and then
you’re somewhere else, and that’s just how it is … These experiments are
helping me in my reading of the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.I know what it’s like to be totally free.”Another patient, Joseph, noted, “I think
the high dose is like death trauma.It
knocks you out of your body … This would be a good drug for people in a hospice
program or the terminally ill to have some acquaintance with.”

One of the most
incredible facts about DMT is that it is endogenous to humans and produced by
our pineal glands.The pineal gland, the
only unpaired organ in the brain is located at the geometric center of the head
between the eyebrows.This mystical
point, focused on during meditation, symbolized by the Hindu “bindi,” is what
Descartes famously called “the seat of the soul.”It is also known as the “third-eye” because
it can sense light and in certain birds, amphibians, and reptiles it even has a
lens, cornea and retina.So why is this
death-rebirth-inducing strongest psychedelic in the world produced inside our
pineal glands?What exactly is its
function?

“DMT is closely related to serotonin, the
neurotransmitter that psychedelics affect so widely. The pharmacology of DMT is
similar to that of other well-known psychedelics. It affects receptor sites for
serotonin in much the same way that LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline do. These
serotonin receptors are widespread throughout the body and can be found in
blood vessels, muscle, glands, and skin.However, the brain is where DMT exerts its most interesting
effects.There, sites rich in these
DMT-sensitive serotonin receptors are involved in mood, perception, and
thought. Although the brain denies access to most drugs and chemicals, it takes
a particular and remarkable fancy to DMT. It is not stretching the truth to
suggest that the brain ‘hungers’ for it.”-Dr. Rick Strassman, “DMT – The Spirit Molecule” (52)

In
human embryos the pineal gland becomes visible and releases its first burst of
DMT 49 days after conception.This is
also the exact moment when an embryo becomes a fetus and the gender of the baby
is determined.At birth there is another
burst of DMT, then regularly every night for the rest of our lives during REM
sleep our pineal glands excrete DMT and “trip” us out into various dream
states.Finally the last and largest DMT
burst of our lives happens at the moment of physical death.

“The human pineal
gland becomes visible in the developing fetus at seven weeks, or forty-nine
days, after conception. Of great interest to me was finding out that this is
nearly exactly the moment in which one can clearly see the first indication of
male or female gender. Before this time, the sex of the fetus is indeterminate,
or unknown. Thus, the pineal gland and the most important differentiation of
humanity, male and female gender, appear at the same time … When our individual
life force enters our fetal body, the moment in which we become truly human, it
passes through the pineal and triggers the first primordial flood of DMT.Later, at birth, the pineal releases more
DMT. In some of us, pineal DMT mediates the pivotal experiences of deep
meditation, psychosis, and near-death experiences.As we die, the life-force leaves the body
through the pineal gland, releasing another flood of this psychedelic spirit
molecule.”-Dr. Rick Strassman, “DMT
– The Spirit Molecule” (61-9)

Traditional Chinese funerals are 49 days long.The Tibetan Book of the Dead states that it
takes 49 days for a recently deceased soul to travel from one physical body into
the next.It also contains 49 days worth
of specific passages for friends and family to read aloud to assist the
deceased in their transition.49 days
after Easter is Pentecost, the day when “tongues of fire” came into the temple
and rested upon the heads of the elders.Symbolically this could mean their crown chakras were illuminated,
pineal glands functioning, and the spirit came down unto them, just as
literally 49 days after conception, the fetal pineal gland begins functioning
and the gender is determined.Are these
49s all just a coincidence or is this mystical number the time it takes for
deceased souls to reincarnate?The
Catholic Church celebrates the “Immaculate Conception” on December 8th,
exactly 9 months before Mary’s birthday, and celebrates the Incarnation of
Christ on March 25th, exactly 9 months before Christmas.Is this why the death and conception of Jesus
can happen simultaneously?Because we
are all re-conceived (reincarnated) at the moment of our deaths and 49 days
later our soul enters the embryo through a burst of pineal DMT?

“I already knew that the Tibetan Buddhist Book of the
Dead teaches that it takes forty-nine days for the soul of the recently dead to
‘reincarnate.’That is, seven weeks from
the time of death of one person elapses until the life-force's ‘rebirth’ into
its next body. I remember very clearly, several years later, feeling the chill
along my spine when, reading my textbook of human fetal development, I
discovered this same forty-nine day interval marking two landmark events in
human embryo formation. It takes forty-nine days from conception for the first
signs of the human pineal to appear. Forty-nine days is also when the fetus
differentiates into male or female gender. Thus the soul's rebirth, the pineal,
and the sexual organs all require forty-nine days before they manifest … [Then]
as we die, if near-death experiences are any indication, there is a profound
shift in consciousness away from identification with the body.Pineal DMT makes available those particular
non-embodied contents of consciousness. All the factors previously described
combine for one final burst of DMT production: catecholamine release; decreased
breakdown and increased formation of DMT; reduced anti-DMT; and decomposing
pineal tissue. Therefore, it may be that the pineal is the most active organ in
the body at the time of death. Might we say that the life-force therefore exits
the body through the pineal?”-Dr.
Rick Strassman, “DMT – The Spirit Molecule” (81-2)

It seems very likely
that our souls enter and exit physical bodies via the pineal gland
(third-eye).Robert Monroe, Robert Bruce
and other out-of-body experts have reported the third-eye as the main contact
point where consciousness enters or exits the physical body during OBEs.Several near-death experiencers talk about
the “silver cord,” a long, bright, elastic cable of light which extends from
the third-eye of their physical body attached to their disembodied
consciousness wherever it goes.Rene
Descartes noticed he could only think one thought at a time and guessed it must
be the pineal gland, the only singular, unpaired organ in the brain responsible
for these singular, unpaired thoughts.He even went so far as to call it “the seat of the soul” which certainly
concurs with Dr. Strassman’s findings.Both
intravenous DMT injections and endogenous pineal DMT conclusively cause
out-of-body near-death experiences and play a key role in the birth-death
process.

“While the release of neuroprotective compounds near death
certainly is a useful response, the psychedelic side effects are not as
obviously beneficial. We must therefore wonder, are these spiritual properties
a coincidence, or do they have a purpose?I suggest that near-death chemicals released by the brain are
psychedelic for this reason: They must be. It is similar to asking why there is
silicon in computer chips. Silicon works. It does the job. Near-death brain
products are psychedelic because those are the properties consciousness
requires at that time.Psychedelic
compounds released near death mediate consciousness exiting the body. This is
their function and this is what they do. DMT is a spirit molecule, just as
silicon is a chip molecule. Rather than just causing the mind to feel as if it
were leaving the body, DMT release is the means by which the mind senses the
departure of the life-force from it, the content of consciousness as it leaves
the body.”-Dr. Rick Strassman, “DMT
– The Spirit Molecule” (326)

“Activation and opening of the transpersonal area in the
unconscious of dying individuals can have far-reaching consequences for their
concepts of death, their attitudes toward the situation they are facing, and
their abilities to accept physical mortality … Those who see themselves as an
insignificant and impermanent speck of dust in an immense universe become open
to the possibility that the dimensions of their own beings are commensurate
with the macrocosm and microcosm. Consciousness here appears as a primary
characteristic of existence, preceding matter and supraordinated to it, rather
than being a product of physiological processes in the brain. It seems to be
quite plausible that consciousness and awareness are essentially independent of
the gross matter of the body and brain, and will continue beyond the point of
physical demise. This alternative is experienced in a way that is at least as
complex, vivid, and self-evident as the perception of reality in usual states
of consciousness. The transcendental impact of these experiences is usually stronger
in those individuals who, prior to entering the transpersonal realms, went
through the experience of ego death and rebirth. The memory that consciousness
emerged intact from this seemingly final annihilation constitutes a powerful
emotional and cognitive model for understanding the process of actual death.”-Stanislav
Grof and Joan Halifax, “Human Encounter with Death” (56-7)

My hair starts to get annoying at a certain length so I always trim it, but it would be a fun experiment to grow it out, I'm afraid I might look a bit too much like Jesus and it would give me a messiah complex :P Peace

Can i ask you about DMT does it act like a transmitter that picks up signals we naturally cant pick up or turns something on inside of us that lays dormant like its a power source and it wakes up a part of us that normally would not be able to sense or interact with other dimensions etc...

+ one other thing do you think its possible to time travel via consciousness like in the tv show quantum leap and leap into a younger version of yourself say you could be 10 years old again?

DMT is endogenous to the human body, created inside our third-eyes (pineal glands). So it is certainly something "inside of us that lays dormant" for the most part, though DMT is released 49 days after conception, at birth, every night during REM sleep, during severe trauma, and the biggest burst happens at physical death. As for "consciousness time travel," near-death experiencers talk about living a "life review" in vivid detail replaying their entire lives, and I've personally experienced several prophetic dreams which showed me my future before it happened, so in some sense, yes it is definitely possible :)

I've been a professional psychic for decades and I agree that there is indeed a strong correlation between these drugs and altered/higher consciousness. I've had a near death experience AND have used LSD numerous times. LSD hints at the near death experience, but the real experience is beyond description. Still, I wrote about my experience in my book, A SECOND IN ETERNITY.

Your information is very interesting & well written. I came across it through my reserch into DMT. After reading your article i find there's one thing i'm conflicted over. If "souls" are reincarnated & the population continues to grow, then where do all the "new souls" come from?I'm amazed the reincarnated soul theory is so blindly accepted by so many

Thanks Anonymous, as souls/consciousness is non-physical, I don't see there being any problem or contradiction in however many or even infinite souls being created. You are thinking in terms of the physical / material world and scarcity, at the a priori level of consciousness, it can do/be/manifest anything.

Also update for the first Anonymous, my hair is about shoulder length now, looks and feels good! Not sure if I've become any more intuitive though as the linked article claimed :P Peace